[JumpCrisscross]

> Are you saying the prices listed were just for the ingredients and not the actual cost to the person ordering?

Sorry, no. I'm saying labour is probably a larger fraction of the burger's costs today than it was in the 1950s. (I'd naively guess profits are, too.)

[db48x]

That may be true, but I suspect that it’s also hard to compare apples to apples. A burger in 1959 is hard to compare to a burger today. Today’s burger almost certainly has twice as much meat. The invention of (and ubiquitous advertising of) the quarter–pounder means that everyone had to make their burgers larger to match. Sides are larger, drinks are larger, etc, etc.

But labor costs certainly have gone up too.

[JumpCrisscross]

This would be a genuinly-interesting bit of analysis for someone to do. (Also do the patty melt!)